“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. The accompanying graph shows one way that they are different. The spend a ton more money at the end of life. Not that it gets them anywhere. The New York Times reports on a paper than… [Read more…]
July 19, 2010
For the first time ever, or at least since statisticians have been keeping track, there are more people in the job market who are older than 65 than those between 16 and 19. The numbers represented in the nearby graph show 12-month averages, so this is not a short-term accounting blip. The New York Times… [Read more…]
July 12, 2010
Last summer, when the health care debate was in full swing and members of Congress were being hounded at their town hall meetings, it was often heard that the bill being debated would provide for “death panels” in which groups of experts might decide if someone should be allowed to die. The panels were actually… [Read more…]
June 13, 2010
More and more workers are fighting back against employers who are unsympathetic when they need time off to care for family members. “In the past 10 years, the number of such suits [against employers] has quadrupled and many have been successful,” according to the Center for WorkLife Law.
February 2, 2010
I was fascinated to read in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal that Henry Paulsen, former Treasury Secretary during the scariest days of the financial panic in 2008, turned to Second Timothy the day before Lehman Bros. collapsed. He writes in his new book, excerpted in the Journal: "What if the system collapses?" I asked [my wife].… [Read more…]
January 20, 2010
New England’s Puritan settlers brought with them two ideas that have driven American society ever since: Calvinism and capitalism. From Calvinism’s birth in 16th-century Switzerland, its descendants, including the Puritans, developed ever more rigorous arguments for individual liberty, freedom of conscience, the rule of law, and the freedom to associate and to enter into contracts.… [Read more…]
January 8, 2010
Conor Friedersdorf has an interesting discussion with moral implications. We reap the benefits of generations before us (who were much poorer) who chose to invest rather than consume their wealth. It’s an issue that’s relevent today as we neglect investment — indeed borrow from the future — for consumption today. And there are moral issues… [Read more…]
August 13, 2009
Christianity has adapted—and thrived—in the midst of economic crises from purposedriven.com It was the worst financial panic that Wall Street had seen in decades. The crisis came without warning, on the heels of one of the most rapid economic expansions in United States history. Investment had been booming and New York was its hub,… [Read more…]
August 13, 2009
Are the Olympics good for democracy? Many South Koreans credit the 1988 Games with helping to bring about the country’s transition from the military dictatorships that followed the Korean War to its modern democratic government. It is not an unreasonable idea. As the citizens of an unfree country are exposed to millions of foreign visitors,… [Read more…]
July 21, 2010
0